Building a Social Media Recruiting Strategy - Full Time!

Each and every day I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to build a social recruiting strategy for Deluxe Corporation. From the beginning of this journey I had intended to blog our progress but immediately got caught in a whirlwind of exciting work, therefore I will start now. Looking over my shoulder, I am completely astounded that I have been with Deluxe for seven months, it’s gone so fast. When we began our social recruiting strategy we adopted the adage, “it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” and with this, it’s pretty much been a full-force dive into the pool!

I always welcome comments, suggestions and advice; and my goal is to help share both our success and failure in this new territory of social recruiting. I am an introvert at heart and although you probably won’t “get that” if you meet me in person, I am verypassionate and endlessly curious.

My official title at Deluxe Corporation is Talent Community Manager. In a nutshell, I create and evangelize the social media recruiting strategy. In many ways, the role requires me to be an integrated marketer (coordinating the elements of the promotional mix — advertising, public relations, marketing and sales promotion—to produce a customer focused message and enhance the Deluxe brand).

When I was hired there were only two or three individuals nation-wide with the same title. Since then, I have continually received questions from people who are beginning their journey in the same type of role. Through blogging, I hope to share the road map I am working from, as well as my ideas for accomplishing the goals we have set for Deluxe’s social recruiting.

Big goals we have in mind:

Cut the word “candidate” from our vocabulary. They are customers and we need to begin treating them that way!

Concentrate on becoming a recruiting organization. Every employee at Deluxe should consider themselves a recruiter.

Promote the “New Deluxe” – the company is in transformation and a large part of my role is to help others understand our new brand.

Build solid emotional connections with our customers.

If you are lucky enough to have a role dedicated to creating a Talent Community, then my best piece of advice is to think outside the box and make innovation a top priority. It’s also about establishing relationships and responding to the unique needs of each customer. In all, I believe making the decision about where you work is equivalent to other major life decisions like buying a new car, getting married or purchasing a house.

Hiring Videos – I had one of those “ah ha” moments when I realized that we should grab the flipcam and have hiring managers talk about the roles they are hiring for. It’s a worldof difference from the typical textual job posting. http://bit.ly/9c5PUv

In the new social media recruiting world, there isn’t just one tool to accomplish goals, there are many and you will likely use several (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or a blog) that each require different means of action to reach an audience; and with these new tools we can now connect with our audience in a way that they want to be reached!

I love your work! Great use of social media ... the culture and hiring videos are fantastic.

I'd love to see a follow-up post about how you measure the reach and success of your social recruiting efforts. How do you attract "customers" to your Facebook, Twitter and Blog content? I don't think Facebook Like and Twitter follower metrics are very useful and would love your opinion.

As a fan, I am pleased that you have chosen to share your journey with us. In just a short time, you have become an important part of the talent community conversation. It is great to see the innovation and success that you enjoy with Deluxe; keep up the great work.

Thank you guys for your comments - they mean a lot to me! Ken - yes, working the metrics end of the equation and blogging about outcomes is a must do. Marvin I look forward to seeing you in Seattle. Gerry I am going to try hard to make it to the next CareerXroads. Rajan, I am working close with onboarding to ensure we engage new employees upstream to better leverage their social networks.

Loved this article, especially the comment about treating candidates as CUSTOMERS. However, as "an integrated marketer... coordinating the elements of the promotional mix" the title "building social media recruiting strategy" is incorrect - rather you are fitting social media & applying innovative programs into the overall recruiting strategy, which is the correct way of thinking about it.

I love it! We've been working towards the goal of getting people more involved with Video (I note that you have 2 ideas surrounding video) for a while now. Check out the video we produced for our employers page....http://www.hirepresence.com/employers/